Updated 12:32 a.m., Friday, April 27, 2012

OAKLAND, Calif. — By far, the best moment of Boris Diaw’s season came on March 23, when the Spurs offered him a lifeboat from a sinking ship in Charlotte.

Now, Diaw is ready to enjoy the spoils of leaving the NBA’s worst team for one of its best.

After the Spurs closed the season with a 107-101 victory over Golden State on Thursday at Oracle Arena that was mostly an afterthought, it was time for the playoffs.

“It’s the best thing there is to do,” Diaw said. “It’s so different from the regular season. Different atmosphere, different energy. I’m definitely ready for that.”

The Spurs, No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, will open their first-round series with eighth-seeded Utah at noon Sunday at the AT&T Center.

Before they could get to that, however, there was the nuisance of Thursday’s game at Oracle Arena against a Golden State team that played just seven players and started an NBA-record five rookies.

Patrick Mills notched career highs with 34 points and 12 assists to lift the short-handed Spurs to their 10th consecutive victory and 50th of the season.

With it, the Spurs extended their string of 50-win seasons to an NBA-record 13 in a row, breaking a tie with the Los Angeles Lakers. That it came in a 66-game lockout-shortened season was remarkable.

Starting at small forward for resting rookie Kawhi Leonard, James Anderson had a career-high 19 points, while DeJuan Blair chipped in 22.

“You don’t really expect anything less than guys to go out and play hard,” said Mills, who eclipsed his previous scoring best of 27 points set the night before at Phoenix. “That’s the thing about this team. Everyone’s going to go out and give 100 percent.”

The Spurs closed the campaign on a 10-game winning streak, giving them three in the same season for the first time in franchise history. They also posted a pair of 11-game streaks earlier this season.

The Spurs (50-16) finish tied with Chicago for the best record in the NBA. The Bulls would own home-court advantage in a hypothetical NBA Finals matchup, thanks to a head-to-head tiebreaker.

With Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili — not to mention coach Gregg Popovich — ostensibly watching back home in San Antonio, the Spurs swept the two-game trip under acting coach Mike Budenholzer.

With losing in the Warriors’ best interest for lottery-ball reasons, coach Mark Jackson trotted out a lineup better suited for the Las Vegas Summer League.

Utah owns Golden State’s first-round pick in the June draft, protected through the top seven. The worse the Warriors’ record, the better the odds they lose the pick.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Golden State started five rookies, becoming the first NBA team in the modern era to do so, and played just two veterans.

The Spurs’ coaching staff had begun pulling film on the Jazz even before the matchup was made official. What jumped out most were the Jazz big men, Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap.

“Obviously, they played well to earn that eight spot,” said Budenholzer, whose team won three of four meetings with Utah during the regular season. “They’re big, they’re physical. They pound it inside. They’re a very good team. There’s a lot of things we’re going to have to deal with.”

“Over the next couple of days, we’ll get a lot more familiar with them.”